Writer/director Erik Bork summoned the late Rodney King with his newest film.
It’s called “The Elephant in the Room,” although the subtitle could easily have been, “Can’t We All Just Get Along?”
‘It made it a bigger challenge. How do you make a romantic comedy when you have that in the middle of it?’
The rom-com stars Alyssa Limperis and Sean Kleier (“Wedding Season”) as a couple staring down a near-impossible divide. She’s a dyed-in-the-wool progressive, and he voted for Donald Trump.
Twice.
Can this romance survive a very 21st-century fissure? Even more important, can a modern-day filmmaker treat conservatives fairly in a politically charged project?
Splitsville
Bork, who co-wrote “Band of Brothers” and “From the Earth to the Moon,” started worrying about the state of the union back in 2016. That, of course, marked the rise of Donald J. Trump as a political force.
The Hollywood hyphenate realized a divided nation could be fodder for a different kind of romantic comedy. Instead of fretting over dresses or ways to lose a guy, a couple could squabble about politics.
“I was starting to be convinced that polarization was a key issue in our society, maybe the key issue,” Bork tells Align. “It made me want to explore it.”
And he had a little help along the way.
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Lou Rocco/Getty Images
Likeable lovebirds
A pair of emerging groups — Bridge Entertainment Labs and the Civic Health Project — counseled Bork on how to make the script less polarizing and more believable. “Elephant” marks Bridge Entertainment Labs’ first foray into pop-culture fare.
“In a romantic comedy, you have to like both of the people. … Can they be both likeable and believable to both sides was a key mission,” he says. That took multiple drafts to ensure that audiences didn’t hate either lovebird.
His small cast also shared their perspectives before the cameras began to roll. Bork credits them for adding their insights to the project.
“They had thoughts and questions and concerns. … Some were playing characters very different from them. … The [film’s] ending was the result of that conversation, that negotiation,” he says.
Affection insurrection
“The Elephant in the Room” is set just before the events of Jan. 6, 2021, one of the most heated political moments in recent memory.
“It was the most dramatic thing,” he says. “It made it a bigger challenge. How do you make a romantic comedy when you have that in the middle of it?”
It’s easy to point a finger at the cultural forces pitting American against American these days. Bork singles out news outlets and politicians who “keep us polarized and make us assume the people on the other side are the most extreme, lockstep version of what we imagine them to be.”
Bork told a story with specific themes ripped from today’s headlines, but he tried not to make a rom-com equivalent of a white paper.
“I want people to enjoy the story, a comedic and heartfelt experience, and have the other stuff be secondary, but the other stuff is important to me,” he says. “It’s not a documentary, and I’m not a social change agent. There’s no call to action.”
Wrong-com?
That said, he hopes the film lets viewers empathize with those who voted the “wrong” way last November.
“It’s about humanizing your interactions with people and having some generosity and curiosity about each other,” he said.
And he knows that can be a tall task.
“Yeah, it’d be nice to get along better, but they’re terrible. They’re stupid and evil,” he said, imagining what some might say about his film’s larger themes.
Bork can’t speak for Hollywood in general, an industry dominated by left-leaning views and an unofficial blacklist against some right-leaning artists. He can share some early screening reactions, which gave him hope about the film’s impact.
He knows plenty of Americans would enter the film with their arms ideologically crossed. He’s seen it up close.
“This is the wrong time for this … a movie that humanizes a Trump supporter,” as he puts it. For some viewers, though, the central love story won them over.
“But I’ve had people watch the movie who I know basically have that feeling … then when they watch it, [they say] ‘this was great and we need this, even though it doesn’t change my view of that man,’” meaning the 45th and 47th president, of course.
Making “The Elephant in the Room” gave Bork a fresh perspective, too. The left-leaning director says working with the aforementioned nonprofits let him examine his beliefs and news feeds.
“I’m trying to notice if I’m in an echo chamber,” he said, “and if I’m consuming things that the whole point is to get me angry or depressed.
“I try to go issue by issue 1757053325 … and be curious to understand, which I wasn’t before as much,” he adds.
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